


Note-Ice Me?

by wutthequiznack (birbsandemidogs04)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A little bit of adashi because I love them, Adam is not dead, Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), High School AU?, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Half-Siblings, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Space Dad Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 14:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16812577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbsandemidogs04/pseuds/wutthequiznack
Summary: Lance: i dOnT LiKe kEiTh, lemme just throw this paper airplane at him real quick --Keith: …Keith: This just says, "I love you please notice me".





	Note-Ice Me?

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh I finally have finished this! I had so much fun writing this — I originally got the idea from a tumblr post someone made about Lance writing notes and two of them get switched because he’s a messy boi and I just had to write a fic about it. So here you go, enjoy!

Lance has been a fan of leaving notes since he was old enough to write them. He remembers helping his mother to make his older siblings' lunches for school and dropping handmade notes into each bag for his three eldest siblings. Combined with his bubbly, erratic and disorganized personality, it makes sense that his skin soon became a victim of his scribbles in different situations, whether it's for doodling during boring lessons or for totally not cheating with formulae on a test, or even for emergency numbers of cute girls. In any case, he usually has a pen with him.

So high school is a load of BS with a heaping side of _why_ _the_ _fuck_ _do_ _we_ _have_ _to_ _do_ _this_ _useless_ _stuff_. Needless to say, Lance's trusty pen follows him around to all his classes, and generally is a necessity not only for notes, but for musings and scribblings he might show Hunk and Pidge during class -- things that might make Hunk snort too loudly and get him in trouble. The usual. Not to mention it helps him out with chicks from time to time. 

This one girl… she's just Lance's type. She's perfect in her entirety. Her name's Allura, and she's a transfer student from England -- her accent's totally hot. Her body is out of this world. Her hair is flowy and shiny and white, almost the colour of snow, while her skin is the most beautiful dark brown Lance has ever seen. So he's crushing on her super hard. But she's into this guy Lotor, who has hair just as perfect as hers and wears those snobby upscale trousers and sweaters like he's in an Ivy League school and not just dingy Altea High.

He's tried to pass Allura notes in class -- they share History — and Chemistry, cheesy as it is -- but nothing ever works. She seems to always reject him.

And if that's not enough, there's this guy who constantly annoys the hell out of him. Keith.

Ugh, Keith. Where to start?

They have History together, and most of it consists of him throwing paper airplanes at the guy behind the teacher's back. Keith never throws them back, but he shoots Lance such looks of either hatred or betrayal that it's worth the rise anyway. 

Ugh. He hates Keith's stupid mullet. It's so long and scraggly and he doesn't know how on earth Keith keeps it shiny because by all accounts, it shouldn't be. Hunk tells him all the time that it's not a mullet, but Lance is pretty sure he knows what a mullet is.

He's got fingerless gloves too, like he thinks he's edgy. And he sits there brooding all the time like some sort of emo, never noticing the fact that girls fawn all over him. On top of this, his older brother is Takashi Shirogane, the most popular, legendary pilot in existence right now.

If Keith would open up the airplanes Lance sends, he'd see all the hate notes -- things like _cut_ _ur_ _mullet_ _pls_ and _get_ _outta_ _my_ _face_ _stupid_ _emo_. But he never opens them anymore, and that kind of drives Lance crazy. He chalks it up to him just wanting to fight the guy already. Maybe if Allura sees him fighting Keith and winning, she'll want to go out with him.

Pidge is skeptical, and proposes the completely illogical conclusion that Lance is merely jealous of Keith.

"No way," Lance snorts, doodling on his wrist in Maths next to her. "C'mon, Pidge, really? With my natural beauty?"

He can practically hear her rolling her eyes. "Okay, so, you're definitely not jealous. What if you're…"

She trails off for a second to think. "Well, you constantly seek out his attention in the stupidest ways possible --"

Lance turns, his pen pausing, and he swears Pidge does the Lenny face. "What?" he asks.

"You like him." Pidge finishes, grinning like a toad.

Lance splutters and almost drops his pen. "I do not! What gave you that crazy idea?" 

Pidge shakes her head. "Come on, Lance. I may be younger than all of you, but I can tell you want his attention. It's like a little boy tugging on a girl's curls to get them to notice them, or a kid bullying another because they don't know how else to appeal to them. I'm not surprised. It's not something that's beyond you."

Lance shakes his head vehemently. "Nope. I'm getting out a piece of paper right now to tell him how stupid he is."

With that, he scrawls something on to the blank page and forms it into an airplane, hitting the back of Keith's head when he throws it. 

Soon Lance graduates to sticky notes -- which means both Allura and Keith get loads of notes every week. 

This means almost all his post-its get shoved into each person's binder every day -- Allura's saying things like, _ur_ _so_ _pretty_ or _ur_ _amazing_ or _girl_ _u_ _make_ _me_ _feel_ _some_ _kinda_ _way_.

Keith's are more like, _y_ _r_ _u_ _so_ _stupid_ or _get_ _outta_ _my_ _face_ \-- the usual stuff.

Sometimes Lance gets to see Keith open his binder and discover the notes, and the look of sadness after the initial anger at discovering them causes a strange twinging in Lance's gut, like guilt. 

Contrariwise, he gets no response from Allura, except for the occasional polite smile in the hallways, which Lance mistakes for a lovestruck grin but which Hunk speculates might be fear. Of course, Lance doesn't listen to this.

So he continues because it's fun, and because he might one day succeed at winning Allura over, if he hasn't already.

By no means is Lance organized. He's told this by Hunk, Pidge, Rolo, Nyma (another chick he wouldn't mind being with), his mother, his sisters, his brother Marco, his sister-in-law… the only person who hasn't is his brother Luis, who doesn't have any room to talk. Anyway. The point is. He's horribly messy. And homework is a bitch. So, the least of his concerns is who gets which note on any given day. It doesn't matter anyway, because it always works out in the end. Keith gets the hate note and Allura gets the love note.

Except for today. 

\--

It's a normal day. Sun shining, birds chirping, and Lance is in a fairly good mood. For this day he's written his usual notes out and has them at the ready -- for Keith, there's a classy, _fight_ _me_ _u_ _coward_. For Allura, there's a bold, _ur_ _beautiful_. _I_ _love_ _ur_ _hair_. _Dinner_ _at_ _7_? with the address for a local restaurant. 

Having planned to ask Allura out for weeks now, Lance figures this is the perfect way to do it. She already knows it's his trademark to send her notes, so this will be no big shock. The only way he thinks this could go wrong is if she somehow accidentally throws it away, and his insecurity whispers fears of her not liking him, but the odds of this are catastrophically slim. So as usual, during first period, which they all have together, Lance drops the two notes on each person's desk.

He immediately sinks into his own seat next to Hunk, chattering about the newest pop single, and takes the time to smirk at Keith while he does, but finds Keith's expression is… weird.

He’s staring at Lance with his mouth slightly open, the bit of notebook paper Lance had used drifting out of his hands. He looks shocked, somehow, like Lance had told him he’s a giant pink potato or something like that, and if he squints, he can see there’s a noticeable blush on Keith’s cheeks.

At that moment the teacher comes in, and Lance busies himself with getting out more paper to take notes. He doesn’t have time to analyze Keith’s reaction right now. If he’s being a weirdo, it’s not Lance’s problem.

—

Later on in class, during an opportunistic lull in the lesson, Lance turns in his seat to grin flirtily at Allura, who sits behind him, but finds she is pointedly ignoring him. She’s got her arms crossed and her face is pointed away from his direction, and Lance can tell he’s fucked up somewhere. Hunk leans over his shoulder, trying to see.

“What’s going on with her?” he asks, and Lance shrugs.

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“What did you do this time, Lance?” Pidge asks over her notes on Stalin, not even glancing up from her binder.

Lance spreads his hands wide in surrender. “Nothing! Geez, everyone’s acting weird today! First Keith stares at me like I’m a freak, and now Allura’s all pissy! I didn’t do anything, I swear!”

Hunk nods like he agrees, but then pauses. Anxiously Lance begins to doodle on his hand.

“Wait. Just them two?” Hunk asks.

Lance nods, his tongue stuck out to the side. “Yeah, it looks like it.”

“And you wrote them both notes today?”

“Yeah—“

Lance pauses suddenly, his eyes going wide. “No.”

“It’s a definite possibility,” Hunk affirms, nodding. “Come on, Lance, as your friend, it’s my duty to know certain things about you, and I know that you’re not the most organized person ever. It could have happened.”

The thought of that makes Lance feel knock-kneed. “No way did I switch them,” he returns, being careful to keep his cool. “It’s just a weird day, that’s all.”

Hunk and Pidge don’t say anything more, but Pidge looks at Lance and wiggles her eyebrows a few times that period, making Lance glad to be able to escape to Math.

—

Unfortunately, Lance and Keith have Math together too, and they take the same stairwell. Fortunately, their interactions are limited, except for right before they both duck into class and Keith asks him quickly, “Did you mean what you wrote in the note?”

Lance thinks back to what he had written, and smirks. “You bet, mullet,” he says, which always seems to rile Keith up.

But today, Keith’s cheeks redden again and he smiles briefly before heading to his seat. His smile catches Lance off guard. It’s extremely rare that Keith ever smiles, and Lance has only heard stories. He’s said to only smile at family.

Shaking his head, Lance bustles to his seat, just as confused as ever.

—

At lunchtime Allura approaches him, bringing over her tray and looking kind of worrisome. Lance takes this as nervousness for their date.

“Hello, Lance,” she says, and her accent is just as beautiful as always. It makes him feel like a rich aristocrat.

He smirks and takes a bite of leftover taco. “Hey, Allura. Wanna sit?”

“Uh, no. Thanks.” 

She looks almost scared of him. Lance knows he can have that affect on people, but something feels wrong here. Something holds him back from asking. This all feels too good to analyze.

“Er, I know we haven’t always known each other very well. In fact, I haven’t known you very long at all. These notes are... sweet.”

Lance is stuck on her face. “Okay?”

“I suppose what I’m trying to say is, did you truly intend to send me that note today?”

There it is again. Anxiety wedges its way into Lance’s gut but again he denies it. There’s no way they could have gotten the wrong notes. She’s probably just anxious about dating him. 

He leans across the table and grabs her hand, looking deep into her eyes. “Every word,” he tells her, and he hopes it sends shivers of anticipation up her spine like she does him.

Looking even more afraid, Allura nods.

Lance’s eyes narrow.“Allura, are you alright?” he asks impulsively.

She doesn’t look at him when she answers, “Funny you’re asking me that, as if you care.”

Lance feels a pang in his gut at the disgust in her voice as she says it, and then walks away, confused beyond belief.

—

Later on Lance catches a ride home with his twin sister Rachel, who starts chattering with him in the backseat almost immediately as Luis drives them all home.

Eventually they land on the topic of Allura, as Luis pulls into the driveway. Rachel unbuckles her seatbelt and laughs. “Ooh, I felt bad for Allura, though. Some idiot sent her this stupid note... said something about wanting to fight her. I don’t know. She was pretty messed up. She didn’t even say who sent it.”

Lance’s hands ball into fists, thinking of only one person. “I bet it was that jerk Lotor.”

—

At quarter to six, Lance is ready, after taking just over 2 hours to prepare. Comparatively, this isn’t a long time for him. This is actually quick. He had been tempted to put on a face mask to get his skin smooth before the date, but convinced himself not to last minute. In the minutes before he gets into his family’s car he catches himself starting to doodle on his wrists a few times, and has to physically put down the pen in order to stop himself.

“Alright,” he tells himself. “Just stay cool.” 

With that he starts the ignition up and starts driving.

—

“Shiro, where’s my jacket?” Keith yells from his room, his hair shifting into his face. It’s half an hour before he’s supposed to be at the restaurant, and his hopes are running on high. He’s already dressed and everything, choosing a simple black t-shirt over black jeans. His red leather jacket would complete it, but he can’t find it anywhere. Riddled with anxiety, he roots through the dirty clothes in his hamper and comes up with nothing.

“It should be in the closet near the front door,” Shiro calls back, from the living room. He always knows where everything is, which is weird because Adam is the one who organizes everything.

Keith groans, stomping back out of his room. “Seriously? I’m going to be late!”

He catches sight of Shiro and Adam on the couch when he enters the living room. They’re watching some old sci-fi show, but Shiro looks round when Keith comes in. “Late for what?”

Keith stops quick, his face reddening. “Uhh. Just a school thing.”

He can’t tell them he’s going on a date. If he does, he’ll never get to leave. They’ll talk his ear off.

“A school thing?” Adam asks, raising his eyebrow skeptically. “Since when do you care about school?”

Keith’s hands clench. “It doesn’t matter! Can I justget my jacket?”

Adam leans back against Shiro, waving his hand nonchalantly. “Like he said, it’s in the closet.”

Keith huffs, lunging for the closet and finding his jacket annoyingly hung quite neatly (Adam, no doubt) on a coat hanger. Slinging it on, he’s about to make his way out the door when Adam calls to him, “And Keith,” he says.

Keith turns with one hand still on the door handle. “Yeah?”

“It’s not a big deal if you’re going on a date.”

And Adam’s smirking. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

Cheeks burning Keith leaves, slamming the door shut behind himself. Sometimes Shiro’s fiancé knows him better than he thinks he does.

—

The restaurant is really quiet when Lance gets there, wearing a button up dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves and some brown slacks. He doesn’t have a reservation, so he stands and waits to be seated, checking his watch on and off. It’s still only ten-to seven but he’s worried and anxious. All this time it had never occurred to Lance that Allura would actually say yes to going out with him. In his mind it had always gone perfectly, but reality had always proven that impossible. He never expected to feel so nervous.

His pen, which had somehow nosed its way into his pocket, comes into his hand now and he uncaps it without thinking, starting to draw on his right wrist. The beauty of being ambidextrous is the ability to change hands and he does this often. Tapping his foot now he completes the heart Hunk had started back at school and smiles at the ease of mind it brings him.

But then as he’s rehashing the sharp lines again one last time to make it look like he’s busy, the door opens, and someone comes into the restaurant.

Lance turns, expecting Allura (of course), or maybe just another random patron, but no. What he gets is Keith.

He squints, watching as Keith’s eyes light up upon seeing him. “What are you doing here, mullet?”

Keith’s expression changes fast to one of confusion. “Uh. Hi to you too? You asked me here.”

Well. That’s news to him. “Uh, no I didn’t.” he returns, shoulders shaking slightly, hating the way his face warms up. “I think I’d remember that.”

“Then what was that note all about?”

Keith’s jacket is slung over his shoulder and his hands are in his pockets — he looks nice. Wait. What?

Lance glances over the anguish in his face and observes it slowly turn to anger.

Before he can respond, the waitress returns to the front desk and smiles at them both, nodding as she procures two menus from behind the counter. “Table for two?” she asks, and Lance can barely get any words out before Keith buts in with a, “Yeah.”

He swears those waitresses go like highway speed as they lead you to your seat, and during all this time Lance is choking on his words, because he’s finally realized he may have made a huge mistake.

—

“Dude, what the hell?” Lance hisses across to Keith from above his menu. “I wanted to take Allura here, not my emo rival!”

Keith harshly pushes a lock of hair behind his ear, looking down at the menu instead of across at Lance. “You think I know what happened? All I know is that you asked me out, and —“

He sort of gasps, catching himself before he says something else. Then he shakes his head and his eyes come up to meet Lance’s. “The point is, this isn’t my fault.”

Lance’s leg bounces erratically under the table, and his fingers come up to his mouth to chew at them as he looks back around, sweeping the restaurant for any trace of Allura. “Oh, crap, what have I done?”

This means that he’s definitely given the other note to Allura, effectively destroying his chances of ever being with her. His head drops into his hands. “This is hopeless. You might as well just leave now.” he mutters to Keith. This is hardly a date, and Lance’s life is ruined so it makes no difference. It doesn’t even occur to him to question why Keith even came in the first place.

“No,” Keith says shortly. It’s slightly muffled by Lance’s hands. “I’m gonna get a meal out of this.”

Lance looks back up and glares. “Well, I’m not paying for it. My life is just about over.”

Keith meets his eyes and then rolls his own, still flipping through the menu. “Come on. Get over yourself. Allura’s not even into you.”

“Sure, just keep telling yourself that,” Lance scoffs, deciding what he’s going to have off the menu.

“You’re impossible.”

Lance puts down the menu, really about to let Keith have it, when the waitress from before walks over. She’s an older lady, older than his mom and younger than his abuelita, and Lance wonders why she’s working at a restaurant so late in her life.

“Ready to order, you two?” she asks with a bright smile. Her hand is poised above a notebook to take down their orders.

The way she said “you two”, though, registers panic and something else Lance can’t place, in his gut. He clears his throat and quickly rushes out with his order of a hamburger and fries, with a cherry coke. Keith rolls his eyes at this. For himself he gets the macaroni and cheese and asks for ketchup on the side, which Lance just about gags over.

“Alright, I’ll be back with your orders soon!” the lady says, taking their menus and flashing Lance a cryptic wink before heading back to the kitchen. Flustered, Lance ducks his down, and only just notices Keith is talking when he hears his own name.

“What?”

“Never mind,” Keith returns shortly, like he’s bitter.

Lance bites his tongue, unsure why he’s feeling sorry he didn’t hear what Keith said. The best thing to do is just eat and leave with as little talking as possible, but he suspects the waitress is assuming things.

He then remembers Keith lives with Takashi Shirogane, only his hero in the piloting world, and curiosity overtakes his soul. He can’t not ask about his idol.

He brings his hand to the pocket of his pants and pulls out his pen, leaning on the table to draw a spiral on his wrist. “Uhm, so.”

Damn it. How should he even start?

In his peripheral he sees Keith look up from the tablecloth, caught off guard. This in turn catches Lance off guard, because he’s never seen Keith not frowning before.

“Yeah?”

“Your brother is Takashi Shirogane, huh?”

Ehh, even he hates the way he says that. 

Keith glares back down at the tablecloth. “Shiro. Nobody calls him Takashi except for his fiancé.”

“Aww, he’s engaged?” Lance coos, forgetting himself. “That’s so cute!”

“Not when you live with them 24/7,” Keith replies, giving a short laugh that doesn’t warrant a smile. He stops just short of saying something else. This is starting to annoy Lance.

“Yeah, I hate to agree with you, but I think you’re right. You haven’t suffered true pain until you’ve been around my brother and his wife.” 

He thinks of Luis and Lisa now. As much as their lovey-dovey stuff annoys him, he’s envious of it. It always leaves him wishing he had that kind of love with someone else. Namely Allura, but those dreams have gone down the drain.

He looks across at Keith and catches him without a frown on his face again. In fact, he’s smiling somewhat. And blushing.

Butterflies erupt in Lance’s stomach.

Whoa. Butterflies? Around Keith? His rival? With whom he’d been forced to go on this dinner date by fate? What the hell is going on?

He’s glad for the arrival of the food to interrupt their moment. 

—

When Keith first arrived at the restaurant, he’d had an inkling of a semblance that something wasn’t right. For that 75% of him that hoped the note was genuine, there was 25% doubt. Knowing Lance and his stupid, made-up rivalry, this could be some kind of epic joke.

And it kind of turned out to be, except Lance hadn’t been playing along.

If only he wasn’t head over heels for the guy. He’s sure that if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be here in this restaurant, falling even deeper in love. He even loves the way Lance ordered a stupid hamburger. He hates this, because it means he can’t even meet Lance’s eyes without going red. It’s a curse he and Shiro have suffered with their entire lives — it’s how Adam figured out Shiro had a thing for him, because (and it’s pretty hilarious actually, when you’re not the one doing it) every time Shiro got near Adam, he would blush redder than a brick wall and start stuttering like the useless bisexual he is. Keith used to laugh, but now that he knows what it’s like he can’t.

Luckily, Lance is as dense as he is handsome, so Keith should be fine. But it is odd how Lance hadn’t just left when he realized what had happened.

Shaking his head in vehement denial, Keith spears some pasta onto his fork and looks sneakily up at Lance. Is he ever a messy eater. His cheeks are crammed full of burger. It’s like this is his first meal in weeks.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, only now noticing the soft pop music playing throughout the restaurant. It’s one of the only pop songs Keith can stomach — “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None he the Richer. But the situation causes his cheeks to begin to glow and burn. He ducks his head and hides his face as he starts to shovel more food in his mouth.

“These portions are huge,” he mutters over the bowl, eyeing the still-heaping serving of steaming Mac and cheese in it.

“They’re not huge enough,” Lance replies. He’s already done his burger and is moving on to his onion rings. Keith stares, incredulous, now probably extremely saturated in the face.

He can’t stop himself from blurting, “Have you never had a meal in your life?”

“I eat when I’m nervous,” Lance says, and then trails off. He’s partway through a piece of onion ring, and coughs. “I mean, I was nervous about asking Allura out, so. That’s what I meant.”

Keith doesn’t dare let his mind go wild with this slip-up. “Well —“ he starts.

“—not that I’m nervous about you or anything!” Lance finishes awkwardly. He’s fidgeting a little bit. Keith gapes in confusion.

“Okay?”

“Good. Because I’m not.”

Yeah, that tells Keith definitively that Lance is nervous around him. Something about that pleases Keith, who hadn’t expected to get much out of this date going in. 

“Whatever you say, Lance.” he smirks, and returns to his Mac and cheese with a renewed appetite.

—

They end up both finishing their meals with no further conversation, and when the waitress comes around with the bill, they argue about who’s to pay it.

“Look, I’m paying because I arranged the whole thing!” Lance is shouting. “It’s only fair.”

Keith frowns. “Just let me pay, Lance. Half at least.”

Lance tugs the folder with the cash closer to himself, and in the process brushes Keith’s hand with his. Immediately Keith’s cheeks redden and he lets go, his hands rubbing together as if they had been shocked. 

Lance had paused as well. He stares at Keith for a few seconds before returning his attention to the task at hand. “Ha! I get to pay.” he cheers, but there’s no malice or relish in his voice.

They walk out together for some reason. It’s light outside for nine PM, but also chilly beyond belief. Keith heads straight for his ride with no intention of saying goodnight to Lance in case he messes everything up with his awkwardness.

“Whoa! You have a motorbike, mullet?”

Lance’s voice, like a beacon, follows him to his bike. He turns, half-glad he’s sticking around.

“Yeah,” he returns. It’s jet black leather and shine, tires pumped to the perfect amount of air, slick helmet perched on the seat. He’s still proud he inherited it from his father.

He doesn’t know what else to say to Lance, and it grows so quiet he almost thinks he’s left. He prepares to straddle the vehicle but then Lance clears his throat, and he’s closer than Keith had thought. He stares over.

“What?”

Lance looks up at him, alarmed, like he’s just got snapped out of some trance. “What? Nothing. I gotta get going anyway, so.”

“Okay,” Keith nods, putting on the helmet. He’s about to rev up the engine when Lance adds something else, and he almost doesn’t catch it, but he does.

Keith’s cheeks burn and he gives Lance a grin before darting off down the road and toward home, reeling.

He’d said, “This wasn’t a terrible date.”

That means the world to Keith, under the circumstances. He smiles all the way home, which he’s never ever done.


End file.
